historical records because i think that is the only set of oral history collection that we ,ave, as far as i am aware about u.s. survivors life experiences. so there are few oral history interviews that we have about them, but i think -- i am not areg to say oral histories the best way to think about the past. of course, there are various ways. but oral histories have a power of bringing individual voices, but it will always be based on the interactions between interviewer and interviewee's. -- interviewees. and it is not only about the survivors themselves, but also about people who had this interest in finding out there own community's history. so it goes both ways. it is a mutual thought that is

really appealing in a way that is very unique to this particular kind of has the local record. ms. rios: thank you very much. professor wake: thank you very much. > pleasure to> talk to you. we are looking -- pleasure to talk to you. yearsare looking back 70 and the atomic bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki. up next, richard frank, author of "downfall: the end of the imperial japanese empire." he discusses american and japanese strategies and japan's eventual surrender. it is about one hour and 15 minutes. such ank: it is always great pleasure to be back in kansas city, which is, in fact, my home area. it is indeed an honor to be her on behalf of harry truman. expected lessve

for someone is speaking on his behalf. i have been working on this area, this issue, now for about 25 years or more. and what of the things i have learned over the years is that i need to start a little earlier than 1945. in fact, what i need to do is really talk about the whole context of the asian pacific war in the second world war. imagine, for a moment, that we were to talk about the european face of world war ii by only having an annual remembrance of the bombing of two german cities. and over the years, as we conducted those remembrances, we gradually -- i think most of us would agree that it would be wrong to deny the humanity of the germans who were in the cities. at the same time, it would look the equally wrong to close our eyes to what else is happening

in the european war. and because the generation fought the war, the generation that remembers the war passing rapidly from the scene. most americans have a very dim, if any, understanding of what the asian pacific war was like. a couple of years ago, i was at a conference where they were showing approved high school level textbooks in the u.s. and i don't of them i noticed it didn't even list china as one of the allies participating in the asian pacific war. a couple of years ago, i began working on the effort to try come up with some reasonable estimates to the number of deaths in the asia pacific war, recognizing that because of the lack of solid data, it is impossible to certify a specific amount. after considerable work and collaboration, and always attempting to go for the lowest rather than the highest number, i came up with a figure of about 25 million deaths.

of that 25 million, 6 million were combatants. of that 69, 3 million were chinese, 2 million were japanese, the balance, other nations, including the u.s. that means that of the deaths during the asia-pacific or, 19 million were noncombatants. of that total, roughly about a million were japanese. the sources are pretty close together, with respect to japanese losses. maybe a little more, maybe a little less. needless too say -- say that for every japanese combatant that that, somewhere between 17 and 18 combatants of other nations died during the war. about 12 million were chinese. now, i have been working on our current project with respect to the trilogy on that and coming up with a catalog of what those numbers actually mean.

i will just touch on two things. because of the conduct of the imperial army in places like shanghai, it produced this title wave of refugees in china, numbering at least 45 million. areased inland away from occupied by japan. quite frequently, chinese families were -- [indiscernible] included parents and children, sometimes five or six or more. and at the end of the long flight, the parents would arrive in refugee centers with one or two children, having abandoned the others along the way. that sort of story about what happened in china during the asia-pacific or is really one small detail of a whole catalog of horrors. the other thing we don't

typically appreciate about the asia-pacific or is that we think of bombing of civilians as something that was basically our because ofn spain the work of publicly kosovo. the first effort to terrorize in public was in shanghai in 1932. a typical picture of a type of bombing that japan did routinely. mentioning these things, i want to emphasize again that i'm not attempting to suggest that we should deny, humanity of japanese and japanese civilians. quite the contrary. what i attempt to do is recognize the humanity of all the participants of all the nations and all the places. i think it is very important when you talk about events in 1945 to really understand the total context of what is happening in this rather sore, which regina has been going on for eight years.

america enters the war at halftime. and that is what we are going to talk further about. the other part of the context is we have now a controversy which has been spitting on for 30 years in this country over the asia-pacific or and its and -- end. let me review how we got here, or at least the context. in 1945, for almost 20 years, -- [indiscernible] was what is now sometimes labeled as the traditionalist view. that had really three components, as you can see her on my slide. the use of bombs was justified, it ended the war, and it was justified because the bombs saved a lot more lives than it cost. in the 1960's, in conjunction

with other controversies of the u.s., there was what is a revisionisted side. i think making that a negative term is wrong. basically, it had three main elements also. as you can see here, they believe that japan's strategic situation was helpless. the japanese leaders recognized this and were trying to surrender. they were on the cusp of surrenders when american leaders -- [indiscernible] is a given.or that the most provocative of that -- [indiscernible] most radically in the postwar era in 1995. ironically, just as this was

going on, it turns out that in the background, a lot of work was going on at exactly that moment. some of it being published at exactly that moment, but fundamentally changed a lot of the ways we looked at this. basically, japanese historians gained access to a lot of material that the japanese government had not erased. most importantly, the u.s. archives began reporting that only a great number of radio intelligence, but there were a number of papers accepted released and in not appear to the public domain until the late 1970's all the way up to the 1990's. rather interesting information concerning the end of the war. basically point was based on all of this work that was going on in counterpoint to the enola gay controversy.

because we know a lot more and we know the emphasis on questions and we have found other questions that had not previously been considered good let's talk about now what actually happened in 1945. president franklin roosevelt in general in 1943, particularly before world war ii, which he described as the unconditional surrender of the axis powers, germany and japan. there is a lot of literature that looks at the unconditional surrender as really a slogan for propaganda purposes. if you go back to the archives, you'll find that from 1943, there was a publisher making process going on that was looking to how we're going to germanyan occupation of and japan and to conduct major renovations of the societies to make sure that they never again threatened peace.

and the state department lawyers emphasized that unconditional surrender give the u.s. and its allies the rights to do things in germany and japan that the international law did not provide. in fact, the state department lawyers said there really was no clear limit to how far the u.s. could go on the unconditional surrender, but it was instrumental in the whole policy process and how we were going to conduct that could so people who talk about the unconditional surrender in 1945 other do not comprehend how vital it was to the ultimate outcome, or if they did know, they do not choose to tell you that, which is another issue. so the first message i have to you is that the unconditional surrender really was the foundation of a program for peace. the president having articulated

his goal, it felt to the joint chiefs of staff to come up with a military strategy to achieve that. the -- oops. discussedmet and this, interestingly as f, they achieved no better than an unstable compromise and the division was really more on what many of us would regard as a political, as opposed to strictly a military issue. and the political issue was what would be the factor that would be most likely to undermine the wealthy american people -- [indiscernible] when that services met -- what the service is meant to argue, time was of a critical issue. and they believed that the best and fastest way to achieve unconditional surrender was by

invading the japanese. the united states navy had a different view. the navy had been -- for four decades. they knew what this war was all about and they knew how to end it. in the course of that for decades of study, one of the most fundamental principles they came up with was that it would be absolute folly to invade the japanese islands. but the japanese -- that the japanese would muster defensive forces much greater than any force the u.s. could project across the pacific. that the terrain of japan, everything that was not soaked was deep, therefore american advantages -- all that would be negated by the to read. and this was a perfect recipe for massive casualties. casualtieslieved were a critical issue that would

undermine support for the war. so the navy's alternative was a campaign of blockade and bombardment. by bombardment, they were thinking both of ships by sea and aerial bombardment. by blockade, they meant something which had not been grappled with. naval blockades have been a littermate instrument of warfare for centuries. but under a legal regime, provided that although the blockading power could keep some instruments of war and weapons from coming into a nation, they cannot block certain other items. most specifically, food. germansish and the change the rules in world war i. and as the policy of alt with regards to the blockade, we're looking to totally blockade japan, which meant everything including food. the blockade meant we were prepared to threaten or starve to death millions of japanese,

mostly civilians. that is what blockade was all about as an alternative to the invasion. now, all of this argument, which took place are more than a year, finally reached a critical point in april 1945 when the joint chiefs of staff officially adopts a policy, a policy paper and in order. that policy paper calls for the execution of a two-phase strategy. the first phase is to continue until november. in november 1945, they will begin another phase, an initial invasion and operation downfall. the first phase is designed to attack the main islands. it will target the tokyo area.

and under the downfall plan, there is a provision that the inevitable happens, with the surrender of japan or not. the order is issued and the admiral, be commander-in-chief operations,naval sends a written memo in which he makes it abundantly clear -- he says, i want to make video that i'm not agreeing we are actually going to invade japan. i only agree we have to issue an order now so that all the preparations can be made to have the option of invasion available in november. but he says, we will come back in revisit the issue whether we will invade japan in august of -- or september of this year. so he makes it quite clear right from april 1945 that the navy is not a board with actually invading japan.

paper in which the joint chiefs explain their strategy, they have a very interesting passage in which they say, the national war and is unconditional surrender to -- end is unconditional surrender by japan. but no japanese governor has ever surrender. 2000, 600 years. -- 2600 years. thethere has never been surrender of a japanese unit and any screamers, battle, or campaign of the asian pacific war. werefore, we cannot be sure can get a japanese government that will surrender. and moreover, even if we can find a japanese government that will surrender, we cannot be sure that the japanese armed forces will compile. i cannot of his size enough that what you have to understand is they are defining what is the ultimate american nightmare in

1945, which is not what we call part of the invasion of japan, it is the prospect of no organized capitulation. in april 1945, we are estimating japanese armed forces totaled 4.52 5 million. 5 million. this is an incredibly prevent this prospect to face. but that is the real nightmare we are facing, not the invasion of japan. is effectively the senior naval officer in washington. admiral chester is the senior naval officer in the pacific. he has been embroiled in fighting the campaign since april. and at the end of may, although he had earlier endorsed to go to the key issue in november, he now sends eyes only, which is just to say a private key

medication, in which he says basically i am no longer in support of an invasion of japan under any circumstances. and this is totally unacceptable. so, we had the navy, but the senior officer in the pacific basically saying, no, no, no, we are not going to invade. now, let's go to tokyo. greeterally 1945, they the new year that with resignation, but with resolution. sure enough, their fleet is but a shadow of what it once was. their air power is diminished. but they still have an enormous ground forces, much, much larger than anything the u.s. is putting in the pacific, and have the soil of japan on which to stage a final battle. but above all, they are guided by a basic premise.

and that is whatever material power america may possess, americans, being of a pleasure loving race, have little morale. and that morale can be broken. and they believe it can be broken by either defeating or inflicting anonymous casualties on the initial invasion of japan. crewhey will, therefore, a negotiating bargaining chips. acrue bargaining chips. and it has both a military and a political component. now, in terms of their strategic planning, they really do one of the best jobs they do in the entire war since the opening phase. and that is what they work out -- when they work out these basic points. the first of which is that americans think of patient don't

have patience to blockade and they will come and invade. as an aside, this is a very important point because the japanese also recognize that they have no counter to blockade in invasion. their strategy is based on the notion that you must come and invade. option the strategic that will allow the japanese to enter the war. well, they learned for quickly that while the americans basically rely mostly on air and most of their power is land-based, therefore any invasion on the japanese island must come from a location that is within the range of american landing strips. and they get out their dividers and determine ok now a -- recognize they are coming

from basis, therefore they are coming for a key issue. so they realize the issue is going to be the target. who looks at a map will immediately realizes that if the americans are coming for airbases, there are only a .ew places they can come and they identified three out of the four major bases we are looking at. so then they conduct a massive mobilization to flesh out this strategy. see, by 1945 covered millione 6 billion -- men with arms. and most importantly, because they are like a gambler placing all of the chips on one bet, they have moved the majority of their capable forces down to the invasion beach area and they the defenders difference

between 700000 and 900,000 men. and they have 10,000 planes and half of them are, causes. confident thatry this will get them the result that they want. they do something else. in the spring of 1945, the japanese government conducts this massive mobilization not only of the military forces, but on the civilian front. they announce and implement a policy that every single male that is 15 to 60 and every single female 16 to 40 is now a combatant. official series on the issue, they have a very chilling itemization of city by city, town by town, they

mobilize all these units. they did a prototype of that, which probably accounts for some of the large losses. so they have converted a large ,wath of the population effective the 20th percent of the population. my math would give me something like 20 million of these civilians now become combatants. and what this does, of course, is in a very real sense, it any differentates between combatants and noncombatants in japan. and this properly understood and false mutual obligations. and spend the only target combatants. japan now has basically made it almost impossible to separate

out combatants from noncombatants. having arrived at all of these measures and these policies and all of these strategies in japan, which we have to have is in imperial conference. one before the emperor that is going to sanction a look these members -- measures. reads theset of rehearsed statements and they endorse a policy which provides that we are going to fight on to the end with no thought of surrender. but have also prepared staff papers. and one of those staff papers has something to say about the prospect for the food supply. downfall anding going over these papers, when i read a paper talking about the food supply, it seemed to be abundantly clear to anybody reading this would realize that what it is really saying is even if it works and there are her

rent is casualties both from blockade and bombardment and the blockade battle, even assuming we negotiate at the end, during 1946, there is going to be horrendous food shortages throughout japan that are going to put literally millions of japanese in peril. did not attribute this knowledge to the senior leadership because i cannot find a source that clearly said, oh, yes, they understood what was in those papers. since that time, edward has wrote a wonderful book. he said it is -- very clear that the senior soldiers in the imperial army clearly understood. it meant not only all these butalties and battles, basically a large swath of the population was going to start to death in 1946. toi find it very difficult

admit that the civilians through the imperial leaders did not understand this. now, as to sherman interestingly -- mr. sherman interestingly orders a meeting. it is at that meeting the transcript is available. the general marshall present a downfall, a two-phase implementation. we can talk about because of the we can talk about the casualty issue, but mr. chairman -- mr. truman only approves of that first phase. as i was reading the transcript of that meeting, i noticed harry

truman, at the end, summarizes -- makes a summary statement. he says basically everyone around the table are all advising me that i should approve this invasion of japan. and i read that and i thought, this is no country bumpkin -- this is no country bumpkin. truman approves it, but as you can see, he still has some serious doubts about the invasion of japan. about 1978 and somewhere in the late 1990's and still a few things trickling out, we have a tremendous revelation when they released the radio intelligence information. had mr. truman and his administration had this material available, we would have never gone in the direction of we had

gone because people never made key arguments that japan was close to surrender before the atomic bombs. the important points here -- first of all, there are messages that are being intercepted. one our diplomatic messages and the others are military messages. one is called the magic diplomatic settlement. the word magic has sort of an interesting background. they had a group of codebreakers and always refer to him -- them as his magicians. their projects were known as magic, and that term stuck for the remainder of world war ii. so these two summaries really tell you what the senior levels of the american government knew and understood about what was going on in japan. another important point was that

everybody who is getting the summary was also getting the military summary. that was a point that was argued over for quite some time. so what happens with respect to these summaries? to theith respect diplomatic summary, what this isws in abundant clarity that although there are a number of japanese diplomats, military and naval come over in europe as theseto form entrepreneurs, we know that no of them had the official sanctions. so there is a lot of literature about various ones of these, but we knew right then that night of these had the sanctions. initiativepanese which actually had official secret.s were highly to secure an agreement with

the soviets to negotiate an end to the war. when you sit down and read back betweenthe cables, tokyo and moscow, they are conducting a cross examination on behalf of the two-minute administration on japanese diplomacy. he said, first of all, the soviets will never -- and secular law, oh, by the light, what is the authority on this? well, [indiscernible] but this also comes back to really the fundamental point. he says, will come if this is the thing to end the war, japan must articulate the terms upon

which it wishes to ends the war. cabinet never comes down with an agreement on terms to end the war. they cannot even come down to an agreement on what to offer the soviets. they come back to this issue repeatedly. terms, terms, terms. if this is a serious effort, we have to have some. finally, in total exasperation, when he can't get an ethical tos -- sense -- he sends cables that say, look, i think the best we can possibly hope for now is unconditional surrender modified only to the extent that the imperial institution will be preserved. here, he has basically put together the package, one of the key arguments of this will controversy. reservenly offer was to

the imperial institution, japan would have surrendered. in the messages he sent back in the name of the cabinet -- sends back in the name of the cabinet, he basically says no. unconditional surrender is unacceptable under any circumstances and he doesn't offer the slightest crumb of, by the way, it might be helpful or might achieve a surrender to japanese government. absolutely not. do you have it in black-and-white. diplomatic summary, july 22, 1945. anyone reading that, and the editors make sure it is clear, is notunderstand that -- going to secure the surrender of japan. now, there are a lot of books written about this and have talked about this importance of this guaranteed imperialist institution.

i cannot comprehend how would you miss this, but i don't think you necessarily have to agree with this, but you don't -- cannot ignore it. now, -- we have the military summary. basically, what this shows is the surrender's picture of the japanese mobilizing on all fronts. of july 1945, general douglas macarthur's intelligence charles, writes a summary that says, at this rate, we will be going in at a ratio of one to one and this is not a recipe for victory. how bad is it? on the left image is what we thought we are going to encounter when we ordered the operation. the image on the right is what

we were actually going to run into. you'll notice that there is a difference. a big difference. a horrendous difference. point, there is a back-and-forth at the highest levels of the american command about the issue of his olympic still liable. -- viable. and this is when admiral king strikes. he stopped thinking about atomic bombs. he is just thinking about the moment when he thinks the stars .re going to align general marshall sends a dispatch to general macarthur in which general marshall basically says to the european intelligence, do you still think olympic is viable? and general macarthur replies, i don't believe the intelligence.

this operation has to be done. let's go do it. those twong then puts messages together in a package and sends them to admiral nimitz and invites him to comment on what he thinks. kingurse, i think admiral at this point is like a good lawyer. you never ask a question if you don't already know the answer. but this is where we sort of widget hanging because of what is happens -- because of what happens is the first indication of japan -- [indiscernible] me decides this is not the time to start one of the great -- of the war. so he just said that it for a few days, hoping he will be relieved of one of the biggest controversies of the war. and now we come to the bombs. there is literature out there

that makes the arguments like this. well, in atomic bomb is dropped on hiroshima. and the japanese do not surrender on that day. they do not surrender on the seventh, on the eighth. on the night, the soviet union intervenes in the war. and by the end of that day, the japanese and the war. therefore, atomic bombs have no influence on japanese decision to end the war. it seems like a really solid argument. let me tell you what they don't tell you. what they don't tell you, first of all, is taking it through the historical context. and that is that their argument really ghostlike this. a government of japan, which is not -- has not surrendered in 2600 years, is presented with an event unprecedented in the entire human history. and in 72 hours, they decide not to surrender unconditionally. do you think that sounds wise

when you put it that way? what really happens in tokyo is this. the japanese military leaders, upon receiving information on the seventh, something for rent as has happened in hiroshima and mr. truman has announced it was an atomic bomb, their position is, well, we are not great to concede the americans have an atomic weapon until we conduct an investigation. the imperial navy position is, well, we don't think the americans can have that much nuclear material. so even if they have an atomic bomb, they cannot have that many of them. or maybe they will be dissuaded from further use by international pressure. think about this. right at the moment when they first learned about the atomic bomb, at the top levels of the japanese government, there is both knowledge and theory of the atomic weapon, and secondly and more importantly, a grasp of the

practical realities of what it takes and a huge industrial engineering feat to produce and quantity. from their ownis atomic bomb program, which did not give them a bomb, but did give them insight in how difficult it is to make the material. so, their position is not that they are unfazed by new seven atomic bomb to their position is they maintain their doubts about whether the u.s. has an arsenal of powerful atomic bombs. and this also, i think, pretty much puts to rest any notion of a single demonstration of a bomb could persuade the japanese to surrender. there response would have been, very interesting, let's see you do five in a row. so. morning of august 9,

1945, the japanese learned that the soviets have intervened in the war. and it is a tremendous intervention. 1.5 million soviet soldiers. they are running into less than half the number of japanese defenders. they have been stripped of equipment, weapons, and first-class personnel. the soviets have this tremendous inventory of armored vehicles. the japanese inventory, not only is it numerically inferior, qualitatively it is hopeless. the japanese only have about 50 serviceable planes and the japanese -- soviets have thousands of them. the soviets are going to trust -- crush the japanese army. but one thing that the soviets do not have is see lex -- sea

lifts. unless the soviet armies are prepared to grab a lot of reeds as they walk across the bottom of the sea, they are not great to get to japan and large numbers. the other thing that is really disturbing that is when you get into the reaction of the japanese military to this, it goes like this. the initially -- the initial reports grossly understate the intervention. who had previously been the principal advocate for the proposition of keeping the soviet side of the war as essential to keeping the war, he sits down and write up a plan that says, well, we want to eliminate the slightest message of any civilian rule. minister, he did doubts that as an appropriate --

he adopts that as an appropriate policy. it has produced this plan which had been implemented -- this is not good. now, in addition to that, later in the day with a half an imperial conference, the chief of staff tells the emperor that the intervention is not favorable. japanese understatement. in other words, they can still wait for the americans to come across the pacific. so the notion that soviet invasion by itself forces the japanese government to surrender has a lot of holes in it. now, what is significant is the

big six i mentioned earlier. they have a meeting on the motorist -- morning of august not and they sit down to talk about under which conditions they will surrender. and they cannot agree. three of them say that not only must the allies issue a promise of preservation of the imperial institution, but the allies must promise three other things. own japan will conduct its war crime trials, and that there will be no occupation of japan. and this is frequently referred terms offer.r the foreign minister and a couple other members hold out. but because the big six can only reach an agreement and classic japanese fashion when they have unanimous agreement, these four conditions are facing the legal government of japan. as the emperor well realized later in the day, this is absolutely and acceptable to the allies.

so the basic point is the legal government of japan never actually agrees to surrender under any conditions that the u.s. or its allies would accept. later in the day, however, the emperor is finally prevailed upon that the foreign minister's proposal -- supposedly the preservation of the appeal institution -- is the way to go. later in the evening -- , the conference -- -- there is a conference and the emperor intervenes. the foreign ministry proceeds to send it off to the u.s. and its allies. but there is a catch. drafted up,fer is the foreign ministry version includes the phrase that we are theng to accept bli -- allied terms, so long as they don't compromise the prerogatives of the emperor as a

sovereign roller. we aresically says that falling back on the legal machine in japan. and what this means is the alice after agreed that the emperor will be supreme -- that the have tohave to be -- agree that the emperor will be supreme. even after two there was also an argument that bomb wasaki unnecessary and had no effect. i have two comments about that. that thederstand --ition was of the military the delivery of the second bomb an arsenal ofhave

powerful weapons. arounderal is running telling people that the americans have an arsenal of 100 atomic bombs, they can drop three a day in the next target maybe tokyo. which tells you the notion that the nagasaki bomb had no effect whatsoever, we can dispose of that. why does the emperor finally decide to intervene? lawyer, one of the is when you are talking about something that happens, the most reliable evidence about what was going on is what they said at the time, what was recorded at the time. if you go back and go through everything we have about what the emperor talked about when he

made this decision, three themes come through consistently and what he says in august of 1945. which is that he has lost faith in the armed forces. this is glossed over in a lot of accounts. the emperor's inc. two things. the strategic plan is bankrupt. secondly, he says he has lost faith in the armed forces. he questions the morale of the senior leadership in tokyo to secure their compliance with surrender. the second thing he talks about theatedly is concerns about sex of international atomic bombing. the third thing -- the effects of international atomic bombing. it is much more important, the

domestic situation. he talks about it in june and other leaders talk about it. the navy minister makes a comment on august 12. he says this may sound strange, but the soviet intervention and -- they're talking about pure of an internal revolt. japanee the trajectory of that this is eventually going to reach a crisis point and produce an internal revolt. that's what he is talking about when he says a domestic situation. the whole series of quotes from all kinds of people, they keep

coming back to this point. with all of these people talking about this and the emperor talking about this, you would think they would have paid more attention to not make this an issue of atomic bombs and soviet intervention -- the single most important reason is the fear of domestic people. upheaval --c domestic of upheaval. this has caused entirely too much emphasis -- this gentleman

i mentioned earlier, his diary i don't think the overseas commanders will comply. these as i don't think they will comply, either. two of the three commanders overseas send a message that we don't agree to surrender. japanese armsll on top of this, the soviets are losing their amphibious capability. they almost get creamed.

becomes even more alarming in tokyo because the senior army command and the emperor is toding orders to soldiers cease and desist and they keep fighting for another day. these soldiers have a victory over the soviets, you can start the unraveling of the whole surrender process. after his famous broadcast to the public, there are several unsure which he remains of whether there will be -- i showed you this photograph. all of you sat there and illegally processed this as this must be hiroshima or nagasaki or one of those cities firebombed by the u.s.

manila after naval troops conducted a house to -- 100,000 that dead filipinos .laughtered or raped waswhole asian pacific war a catalog of horrors. the death toll, probably 25 million. that is conservative. some argue 30 million dead in china alone. i used the 50 million figure or death in china -- 15 million deaths in china.

one military to three civilians, worse than europe. in terms of noncombatant deaths versus combatant that's. -- combatant deaths. the japanese have colonized mens anchuria -- they capture the rest. between estimates 300,000 and 500,000 japanese nationals disappear. 62,000 japanese military pows died in soviet

captivity. when hundred 80,000 japanese civilians died in captivity -- 180,000 japanese civilians died in cap devotee. -- captivity. one million vietnamese are buying from starvation due to famine. -- dying from starvation due to famine. the other kicker to all of this is that, after the surrender of germany, we analyzed the effect of bombing germany and they came back and reported two effective farming targets. -- bombing targets.

it raised up the importance of the rail system. we found out later because we did not fully appreciate at the time, the combination of japanese demographics, half the population of japan was on the main island from tokyo to the southwest. upon foodendent surplus from other areas. rail, wead to rely on would have triggered famine. because the japanese food production had collapsed. when we get to japan and begin the occupation can we find out how desperate the situation is. say 10 millionrs

japanese were threatened with death by starvation. imagine 1945, japan's people were not exactly high on american people. we were in a position in which could allow them to fall into famine and die. mr. truman's government decided that was not acceptable. a combination of japanese government headed by the emperor who managed to keep a rationing system in order and american --ops applies to japan supplies to japan fended off an humanitarian crisis.

that's how the asian pacific war ended. thank you. [applause] >> we are going to have a question and answer period. there will be a microphone down here. those of you who have questions, please come to the microphone and ask us so it can be recorded properly. there a circumstance in which an atomic bomb should not have been used? andmost likely scenario only scenario i can imagine is this -- the scientist that -- theed the atomic bomb production of radioactivity. they thought in terms of the

radio activity of detonation. they thought anyone close enough to receive a dose of radiation would have already been killed by the blast or heat. they did not think about the fallout. andthey understood that that been conveyed to the top -- that was a very repulsion to the use of gas. had harry truman and others understood that aspect about what a nuclear detonation was

about, they would have had big-time issues addressing the use of the weapon. i can think of nothing else that --uld have served as yes, sir. >> let me couple menu on your sophisticated and informative analysis of this the moment. -- let me complement you on your sophisticated and important development.his to what extent is macarthur informed about the sophisticated and complex set of factors that go into the decision for accepting the surrender? know, macarthur is one of the most difficult individuals

in the asian pacific war. -- there times when are other moments when i try to -- his role in all of this was basically he was concerned only with the invasion. he was informed very belatedly about the bombs. he was given this portfolio of programs to implement in japan, which he then proceeded to cling were his own ideas and inspiration. i have some latitude about how he could implement that. withrms of what's going on bombs and the final surrender of japan, he was not really in the top councils and how that went on. we were not sure what would on behind the curtain of japanese

leadership and what the role of the emperor was. in the efforts to secure the surrender of the japanese armed forces after that original broadcast, the imperiled abc out imperial navy sent out a message and we intercepted it and that gave us hard evidence of the role of the emperor. that played an important role in only made the downstream -- there was no guarantee the emperor would be maintained or whatever. macarthur was told not to do anything. macarthur claims he is investigated and the emperor had no role in all this stuff, which is malarkey. back-and-forth, macarthur, his issue is only

invasion. yes, sir. >> addressing this situation, the japanese hierarchy said we had 1000 bombs. we only had two and they were delivered as soon as possible. do you have any idea when we could've had a third one? >> they thought we had 100 bombs. enough, this gets back to the whole concept behind the program. there was a fellow named william --nell, enable officer enable officer overseeing the effort. -- a naval officer overseeing the effort. he said from very early on, it's going to take to bombs to convince the japanese to surrender.

the first to show them we have a bomb and the second to convince them we have an arsenal of bombs. , this guyck on it deserves a lot more credit or inme about what happened 1945. he understood exactly that the leadership would have a basic -- we dropped the two bombs and had orders to drop them as rapidly as possible. they had a sense of urgency that getting the second bomb off would help a lot. the third bomb, components were ready. of date is about the 18th august. it was held up. the third thing about this,

, after marshall macarthur said -- marshall details one of the senior staff and officers to talk to one of the officials of the manhattan project. marshall must designate representatives as marshall believes the japanese will surrender after two bombs hit cities or they will never surrender. he needs to know how many bombs available by the first of november to use a tactical weapons. basically, they're only safety concern is what if we drop one of these things and it does not go off.

, by the no mention of way, we will send our guys marching into this area. at that point, the leadership does not understand the concept couldlout and hazards that's what marshall was doing. thank you, we never have an answer to the question of what would've happened. >> thank you so much. always a pleasure to listen to a scholar. i have a question about your evaluation -- i enjoyed what you said about him at the end. in thes his position japanese war from your perspective? was he the mastermind behind this or being used by the military? >> in very good and difficult question and controversial question.

one argument is the emperor was not sitting on the sidelines. he was this driving mastermind of the japanese imperial empire, war machine, decision-making. we can certainly find instances in which the emperor says do this and they do that. when you gois, through the records and find there are a lot of instances where he says do this and they do not do this -- there is this disconnect between what he orders and what follows. says theese scholars notion that the emperor's sitting on the sideline as ,his will was me figurehead that won't fit, either. he is very engaged. he gets briefed about what's

going on. questions on numerous instances, he knows all of this stuff very well. he is very much engaged. everything is done in his name. this is the troublesome aspect. the japanese conducted the entire war in the name of the emperor. thatltimate consequence of , although we get good things of the occupation, one that we don't get is this sense of responsibility. by personal take on this, fraughtwe were facing times, are we going to get compliance of the japanese armed forces and this food crisis that , in mayfor three years

of 1946, the official food ration in tokyo is 1000 calories. they don't go over the ration. that's how desperate it gets. keeping the emperor for the stability was a reasonable judgment of the occupation. it would have been gambling a lot to do something else. thehe end of that, that was moment when we should have stepped in and said now is the time to advocate, to accept war response ability. that would have solved a lot of the problems we grapple with today. --getting back to macarthur >> we always get back to macarthur. >> after world war i, the veterans had a tremendous demonstration in washington, d.c. which eventually led to the g.i. bill after world war ii,

according to some historians. mcarthur was given in order to clear the mall of demonstrators. he went across the potomac and burned all their tents. when hoover was told of this, he said that was not his order. he disobeyed my orders. mcarthur should've been fired then. him? who it took to fire y fromttle farm bo missouri. >> if you read the dispatches he ,s sending back to washington havee marshall should stepped down big-time to say that macarthur is articulating these messages that are totally unacceptable. they let macarthur get away with it and present roosevelt did

also. macarthur had been given free range to do all this stuff for years. he had this enormous public prestige that he gained. terrible -- as a to marshalles back and simpson and roosevelt, letting macarthur get away with not haveat he should committed. ballgame went to a after firing macarthur and he got booed. how many prisoners of war were in japan? there were about 140,000 prisoners of war being held by japan in 1945.

when hundred 30,000 civilian internees, one of whom is with us today. -- 130,000 civilian internees. she was in shanghai. had theyclear that reached desperate straits, the less people they were going to beat were pows. those guys would have all been gone. -- the last people they were going to feed were pows. the first application the japanese will -- in any lbears falls are punitive use, we will hold those responsible. our powslls our

comeau we will hold those responsible. when i was in the marines, i was assigned to the war howes -- i always wondered they pick who would be tried and who would not be tried. they committed awful atrocities .n our prisoners for years, i always wondered what process did they use to determine who should pay something for what they had done. >> that is a really deep and complex issue. the ones that were famous were the ones in tokyo, the class a

defendant's. the top level leadership. -- class a defendants. ce bn and categories would be tried at the the crimes took place. we had a limited ability to verify who these guys were. some of them slipped away immediately. those of you will have seen unbroken, you know the story antagonistrincipal who slips through the net. japanese police made a sincere effort to catch up at the sky. there's a lot of criticism about this. guy.tch up with this the other thing about this whole thing is we gave the japanese

apple notice that we would conduct war crimes trials. -- ample notice. there was tremendous disruption of documentary evidence. the comfort women issue is a classic example. they did have some evidence , but war crimes intercepts that was all super secret classified and they were not going to use that in a trial. japan, there's the view that --s is victor's justice we ought to be able to pick who we were going to try instead of them. they made a good-faith effort.

some of those trials fish those of you familiar with what , these medical experience on people -- the japanese bully matched anything the germans did in that category . matchedapanese fully anything that germans did in that category. >> i greatly appreciated your presentation. >> thank you. [applause] you can watch our special programming on the 70 anniversary of the atomic bombings of hiroshima and , japan tonight at 10:00 p.m.